


POV: The Bloody Thing

by SpoonerizeSwiftness (SplickedyHat)



Series: Splickedydrabbles: The Tumblr Request Collection [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Execution, Implied/Referenced Torture, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:39:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SplickedyHat/pseuds/SpoonerizeSwiftness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Request: The climax of Poor Unfor-tuna-te Shoals, Chapter 7, from Karkat's perspective.</p><p>Doing the bloody thing feels like punching himself repeatedly in the face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	POV: The Bloody Thing

Doing the bloody thing feels like punching himself repeatedly in the face. 

It’s been a long, long time since the first dream told him he had to hide his friends. ( ** _Hide them fr9m the eyes under the water, hide the p9wers 69rn in them, knight of 6l99d, pr9tect—_** ) It’s been a long, long time since he even bothered to feel the pounding headache in his temples, throbbing along with the beat of his heart. 

Taking that pounding ache away is like suddenly remembering how to fly.

Aradia is sobbing, Tavros is gasping to breathe, Sollux  _ **screams**_  and thrashes as his feet lift off the floor and his power makes lines of seared black on Karkat’s eyes, the whole world is light and spinning, and power…

He thinks he apologizes at some point, but it’s not important.  ( **Well d9ne, well d9ne, such a g99d j96, y9u’re alm9st there…** )  What’s important is that they finish this.  That’s the thing to do.  God, his head doesn’t hurt anymore.  His head doesn’t  _hurt_ anymore.   _Wow **.**_

"…KK," Sollux breathes, and the power that arcs off him puts Karkat’s hair on end from across the cavern.  The Sufferer makes an impressed noise in his ear from somewhere far away.  "What—did you—do?!"

( **Listen, Karkat.** ) “I knew she would be looking for you,” Karkat starts absently, and blinks.   **What now.** ( **You have p9wer 6ut she is far 9lder—y9u have t9 take Mituna away from her.** )  His mouth is talking without him listening, but it ought to be saying pretty accurate shit—Karkat blinks.   **Mituna?**

( **Capt9r** )

There’s a weapon a few inches from his throat.  Sollux has got it, though.  Too much effort to take care of.  Keep talking.  

( **6reaking his c9ncentration w9n’t 6e hard, 6ut I need y9u t9 trust me.** )

( **please, Karkat.** )

( **let me save my last friend.** )

The one thing he hasn’t allowed, the one thing he’s kept locked away even when the voices in his head snuck into everywhere else, sat in his dreams and guided his hands.  Control.  

( _let me save my friends_ )

**Okay.**

Karkat blinks, and finally steps back from the trident that—holy shit that was close to his throat.  What has he even been talking about?

‘ _Knight of blood_ ’, a quick mental review turns up.  ’ _Mental block, super blood powers, weird dreams_.’  Okay.  

“I have no idea what I did, okay?” He informs them all, and maybe that’s not quite honest but honest is relative and his headache is easing back again (but not the same, nothing like, this is an  _actual regular headache_  and compared to the one he’s been living with it’s paradise.  

( **Put 9n a sh9w f9r her**.) 

"…weird class and a weird aspect and two patrons and my ancestor was a seer and the whole thing is one big…"

( **just 6uy me as much time as y9u can, as much time bef9re she—** )

"—trying to coordinate the military for an entire fucking country or anything!  God I have a headache.”

( **Shit.** )

“ENOUGH!” The Phosphor screams, and half of the people in the cavern scream with her—the eels scream and  **fuck** , Tavros doubles over as well, holding on to his head. And the Phosphor darts forward in the opening and snarls something in the Ψiioniic’s ear that make the air turn white and angry.

( **MITUNA!** )

He doesn’t realize the word actually comes out of his mouth until the blast cuts off like a candle flame blown out, and then something hot and close and familiar slides into his veins and he is  **in an unfamiliar body, young and war-tested and strong and no stranger to pain, the ground is cold and the air is wet and he can** feel the presence in his mind like a hot hand on his shoulder.

“ **Mituna,** " he says again,  " **…someone called you that once, didn’t they?** "  And then he elbows the warm, close presence away, and his mouth is his own again.  **Fuck off old man.** "Somebody used to call you that.  But he’s dead, so right now you just listen to me."

The Ψiioniic  **Mituna**  cocks his mismatched heads, confused, and his voice is just the same, like it always was after a long night of yelling and running and preaching and using his powers.  Hoarse and familiar and skeptical.  ( _That’s stupid, Karkat has no idea how he should sound, shut up._ )

"What do you mean, dead?" say Mituna’s voices, and the delay and echo don’t make them any less painful to hear.  

"I mean he’s fucking dead."  Flashes of  **looming darkness, pain, anger** — **Hey quit it!** ( **I’m n9t sure I can.** )  ”Fifty sweeps ago, the Signless Sufferer was put to the shackles and subjected to goddamn public execution.  I don’t know what she told you, but she lied.”

“Dead?  How…?” Mituna croaks, and The Sufferer remembers  **he wasn’t there and they told me he had sold me, given me up to the empire—I knew it was a lie, I always knew it was a lie.**   

The memories are there.  It’s all a matter of reaching for them.

“They captured him a day after you left,” says Karkat, and the Sufferer is already ready with the next shards of memory, bright and immediate for him, marked out in pain and fear and the clarity of the edge of death.  “He went to them for one last meeting— **they all told m** —him it was stupid but he went anyway, just to make sure, and he held out his hands to seal the deal and they—”

**FUCK.**

( **I’m s9rry.  I’m s9rry, I’m s9 s9rry y9u that have t9—** )

**Shut up.**

“…people say they put him straight in the cuffs, but they didn’t.” ( **I put my hands up, held them 9ut t9 sh9w they were empty and he laughed and laughed—** ) “—the Highblood grabbed both his wrists in one hand and he slammed his head into the ground until he stopped moving— **he was huge, you know, I was never tall, my friend.** ”

**STOP THAT RIGHT THE FUCK NOW**

( **I can’t, I’m—** )

**Don’t say you’re sorry again!**

“—no!” His body blurts out, and he mentally shoves back the voice in his head again—his wrists ache, twinge, burn.  His head  **hit the ground just by one horn** ; it throbs.  ”—Fuck, I’m just telling the story, you shut up.”

The execution spells itself out in front of him, like pictures made in fire.  Sensation leaks through—the beatings, the harsh reminders of the pain to come, the laugh of the Grand Highblood ringing horrible, cold bells of fear and pain in both their minds.  The whipping, the exact place each stroke cut into his skin.   _ **Meulin’s face** **oh god, my precious one, the pain in her eyes, how she screamed at them and tried to protect me, my darling warrior queen—**_

Pain, a missing tooth  **terror**   ** _agony_  mommy please it hurts I’m scared I don’t want to die how can they do this please no no no mom make it better, IT HURTS—**

 **Meulin looking**  at him, she had had the biggest green eyes,  **the roughest palms, gentlest hands, Mother**  had been chained and led away,  **chained how dare they how could they I shouldn’t have let her** **come**  and his friend, his best friend, missing, gone,  **always making bargains he couldn’t afford to pay for things that were never worth the price**.

“ **My dear friend,** " says the Sufferer, and his pain is the pain of half a hundred sweeps or mourning.  " **I never got to tell you ‘goodbye’.** ”


End file.
